Sunday, February 10, 2013
Missed any of this week's Fair Lawn-Saddle Brook news? It's all right here.
Fair Lawn native and army veteran Scott Ganz, 30, was discovered dead at his home in Orlando, Fla. this week. Regina Barrale, 44, was sworn in as a Saddle Brook Board of Education trustee Monday night. Council has elected to reallocate $80,000 in county grants originally intended for the construction of a skate park at the former Walsh Pool to a barrier-free playground at Berdan Grove. A Plaza Road resident allegedly stole from his roommate on multiple occasions and then adopted his roommate's identity to make credit card purchases, police said. Bruce Walker's tattoo parlor, which closed in Fair Lawn at the end of October, reopened Tuesday in Saddle Brook. Borough council agreed Tuesday to take the municipal building to a four-day per week…
Friday, February 8, 2013
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- GOVERNMENT
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Friday, February 8
Upon learning it had the county's blessing Tuesday, borough council agreed to take $80,000 in county grants initially intended for the creation of a skate park at Walsh Pool and transfer those promised funds to the construction of a barrier-free playground at Berdan Grove. The skate park, while not abandoned entirely, is firmly on hold until Fair Lawn All-Sports returns to the council with its plans for expanding the organization's footprint at the former Walsh Pool site. All-Sports' preliminary plans, which have not yet received council support, call for building a baseball and soccer field around the skate park. While several council members said they intend to honor their earlier commitment to relocate the skate park, some residents …
Council has elected to reallocate $80,000 in county grants originally intended for the construction of a skate park at the former Walsh Pool to a barrier-free playground at Berdan Grove.
Residents eagerly awaiting the return of Fair Lawn's modular skatepark will have to wait a while longer. After backing a multi-phase plan to expedite the transformation of Walsh Pool into a skate park for much of the past year, council abruptly changed course Tuesday and reallocated -- with the county's permission -- all of its skate park grant funding to the construction of a barrier-free playground at Berdan Grove. "Berdan has been established as the perfect place [for the ADA playground]," said councilwoman Lisa Swain, who supported the $80,000 fund transfer. "That playground is overdue for a total makeover and we need to think about our residents with special needs, they need a place to go." The reprioritization of funds comes less …
Friday, September 28, 2012
Workers have been out filling what was once Walsh Pool this week so the area can be converted to a modular skate park.
- LOCAL CONNECTIONS
- Zak Koeske
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Friday, September 28, 2012
The first step in the process of converting Walsh Pool into a skate park started this week as crews began dumping clean fill into the one-time borough swimming hole. The borough had hoped to fill the pool weeks ago, but has been delayed for a variety or reasons — the most recent being wet weather conditions. Once skies cleared over the weekend, however, filling finally began in earnest on Monday, borough engineer Ken Garrison said. Garrison said filling the pool area -- which has an average depth of 6 feet, but goes as deep as 12 feet in some areas -- should last about a month to ensure proper spreading and compacting of the dirt. Once filled, Garrison said the borough must then wait until late spring or early summer before the fill has …
Friday, August 24, 2012
Council has approved the submission of an additional grant for the skate park that would require a $50,000 borough match, if approved and received from the county.
Fair Lawn's council will move ahead with its plan to re-envision the former Walsh Pool area as a skate park in spite of opposition from one of its members. The governing body voted Tuesday to apply for an additional matching grant from the county's open space trust fund that, if received in full, would put the borough on the hook for an additional $50,000. Deputy Mayor John Cosgrove was the lone dissenter. "It’s a $50,000 grant, which means the town would have to put $50,000 into it, on top of a $30,000 grant from this year," Cosgrove said. "In my mind, I just don’t see that being viable right now in these economic times." Earlier in the meeting, Cosgrove voted in favor of extending the borough's original $30,000 matching open space grant …
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Council agreed Tuesday to proceed with relocating the borough's modular skate park to the Walsh Pool area on Harristown Road by the Dobrow Sports Complex.
With only a few weeks remaining for the borough to formalize the relocation of its modular skate park or risk losing county open space grant funding for the project, council has selected the former Walsh Pool as the skate park's new destination. "We, as a council, made a commitment that we would do this," Deputy Mayor Ed Trawinski said Tuesday. "And I think it’s something that we need to try here, do our best to enforce our rules and regulations and give it a shot. I can’t think of a better location in Fair Lawn -- if we’re going to put it anywhere -- that we could put it." Last June, the borough opened the Warren Point Annex Skate Park at a converted tennis court on 30th Street and Pellack Drive, but the set up lasted less than a month …
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Council is expanding its scope for developing the Walsh Pool area beyond just the relocation of its modular skate park
Since borough manager Tom Metzler proposed relocating the town's modular skate park to the old Walsh Pool area last month, the spot has become a highly-coveted location for various community groups hoping to land space for their pet projects. In addition to a skate park, other suggested uses for the Walsh Pool area include a barrier-free playground for handicapped children, a sprinkler water park, a sand volleyball court, a sports bubble, a turf field for physically challenged athletes or a combination of these facilities. The benefit of turning the old Walsh Pool area into a more varied recreational space is that it would give the borough entree to various grants that could assist in financing the development. Because the borough must …
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Skatepark advocate Chad Balcom said that modular skateparks, like the kind Fair Lawn purchased, last only three to five years on average without regular maintenance.
It's not where a skatepark is located, but what it's made out of that matters. That's the message public skatepark advocate Chad Balcom tries to impart to local government officials across the country when they consider bringing a skatepark into their community. Balcom is a director at Skaters for Public Skateparks, a Portland-based non-profit dedicated to ensuring safe, rewarding, accessible skateparks are available to all skateboarders. As such, he's an avowed critic of modular skateparks like the kind Fair Lawn purchased last year, because he believes they are noisier, less safe, less aesthetically pleasing, less fun to ride and less cost-effective in the long run than concrete skateparks. Balcom said he finds when communities are on …
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Missed any of this week's news? It's all right here.
Monday, Feb. 6 Police Coordinating Interfaith Block Watch Last month’s discovery of anti-Semitic graffiti at two Fair Lawn parks and the delivery of an anti-Semitic letter to the Fair Lawn Jewish Centerhave prompted the borough council to take action. “With the number of instances that have occurred, we just can’t sit back and watch,” said councilwoman Lisa Swain, who proposed forming an interfaith committee at the Jan. 24 council work session. “We really have to make sure we are on top of this, from the local level to the federal level.” As it turns out, Fair Lawn police Sgt. Richard Schultz unknowingly laid the groundwork for such a community interfaith group late last year while performing his standard end-of-year functions. Detective …
Thursday, February 9, 2012
The borough's county open space grant for the skate park project expires in June.
If council moves quickly, Fair Lawn skaters may again have a place to kick, push and coast by summer. At Tuesday's work session, borough manager Tom Metzler proposed relocating the town's skate park -- pieces of which are currently in storage -- to the Walsh Pool area on Harristown Road by the Dobrow Sports Complex. "There’s plenty of parking, it’s a rather large track, it’s away from any homes that there there would be any disruption," Metzler said during a sales pitch to council on the new location. Last June, the borough opened the Warren Point Annex Skate Park at a converted tennis court on 30th Street and Pellack Drive, but the set up lasted less than a month before being disassembled as a result of resident complaints. The borough, …
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Zak Koeske
12:20 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
@Jenne - The borough had been planning to go ahead with the skate park. They had a design and a timeline for construction and they filled the pool to begin that process. Then All Sports made a presentation about their plan for the space, and not long after that, the council learned the county would honor a transfer of the grant from the skate park to the ADA playground. They were given the … more ›